Transport committee  Good morning, Madam Chair and committee members. Thank you for the invitation to meet with you this morning. I'm very proud to be here this morning to represent the employees of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, men and women who remain dedicated to the protection of Canada's national security interests and the safety and prosperity of Canadians.

Transport committee  By Transport Canada and then an investigation would ensue either by the RCMP or ourselves and often in tandem.

Transport committee  The answer is yes, we do. As I indicated in my opening comment, when new information is surfaced by Transport Canada or by ourselves or by law enforcement partners, we collectively mobilize very quickly to ensure that we have the best analysis and the best assessment of what that potential risk may be, whether it's a national security risk or a criminal risk in the confines of the RCMP's responsibility.

Transport committee  Yes, we do. We've developed mechanisms and procedures that do, in fact, allow us to deal with the volume that we get from our government screening program. I would mention that Transport Canada is but one of the government departments and agencies that we service through this program, so the numbers are actually probably about fourfold of that 80,000.

Transport committee  If I could add to the assistant commissioner's comments, as you can imagine and as you've heard this morning, the safety of Canadians is of primary interest to all of our organizations. The catastrophic events of Air India were a wake-up, not only for the security intelligence community but for Canadians in general, so we devote an enormous amount of time and effort to making sure that number one priority is addressed efficiently and effectively.

Transport committee  Obviously the revelations that surfaced from the media reporting were of concern to all of us—Canadians and certainly the security intelligence community. As we indicated this morning, we mobilized very quickly to make sure we understood that potential threat and to take mitigative measures to make sure the threat was contained.

Transport committee  You presume correctly. Yes, indeed.

Transport committee  The other thing I would add to it is that, in the aftermath of the media reporting, our service obviously took note of the potential serious implications of it, and we proactively then rescreened the names and individuals who had previously been identified to us by Transport Canada, all 80,000, if you will.

Transport committee  Let me add to that. First of all I agree with Assistant Commissioner Oliver that we're very mature in this space and in the sharing of information. Also, the timeliness of that sharing of information has been tested and proven efficient. Moving forward, one thing we at CSIS are very challenged by is the ability of other departments, the RCMP included, to use our information in an adjudicative process.

Transport committee  I'd be happy to.